It wasn’t that Jamaal Pritchett lost the battle to be the Jets kick returner with one muffed punt as much as it was that Xavier Gipson won it with his body of work.
It might have looked like Pritchett’s fumble in the preseason finale against the Eagles was the deciding factor and enough in the Jets’ eyes to offset his team-high 54 receiving yards and a 41-yard punt return in the same game.
Not so, head coach Aaron Glenn said.
“There’s more than just the preseason games that everybody sees,” Glenn explained. “There is a ton of practice time that Gip has done an outstanding job. We counted most of his reps as far as the punt returner, and I think he was 145 strong without dropping a punt — and actually catching it the way that I see that a punt returner should catch it. So, I feel really confident with him in that aspect — and, man, he is dynamite when he gets in the open field.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
